Tag Archives: David B. Caruso

What does it take to Ebola-proof a hospital? Over the past few months, U.S. medical centers have spent millions of dollars putting together a plan to treat patients with the scary, but extremely rare disease. To a large extent, it has been an exercise in improvisation.

There was a time when the neighborhood hospital was a cornerstone of New York City life. But for a growing number of city residents, the trip to have an appendix taken out or get treatment for a broken leg is increasingly being measured in miles rather than blocks.

A Malaysian company’s plan to build a $4 billion convention center and big-time casino on the outskirts of New York City could be the biggest shot fired yet in a tourism arms race that has seen a growing number of Eastern states embrace gambling as a way to lure visitors and drum up revenue.

There is no place in the U.S. more expensive to smoke than New York City, where the taxes alone will set you back $5.85 per pack. Yet, addicts who visit Island Smokes, a “roll-your-own” cigarette shop in Chinatown, can walk out with an entire 10-pack carton for under $40, thanks to a yawning tax loophole that officials in several states are now trying to close.

Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator says he is confident that the natural gas industry is just weeks away from ending one of its more troubling environmental practices: the discharge of vast amounts of polluted brine into rivers used for drinking water.

The natural gas industry’s claim that it is making great strides in reducing how much polluted wastewater it discharges to Pennsylvania rivers is proving difficult to assess because of inconsistent reporting by energy companies – and at least one big data entry error in the state’s system for tracking the contaminated fluids.

Pennsylvania’s natural gas drillers are still flushing vast quantities of contaminated wastewater into rivers that supply drinking water, despite major progress by the industry over the past year in curtailing the practice.

Donald Trump offered Thursday to buy out a major investor in the real estate partnership that controls the site near ground zero where a Muslim group wants to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque.